I’ve previously mentioned my work with Resistencia en Acción, a migrant defense group based in Princeton and Trenton, New Jersey. Much of what Resistencia does is to face down ICE whenever the need arises. And to put it bluntly: ICE has to be faced down. It’s less a law enforcement agency than a glorified group of thugs–an American Gestapo–intent on solving, by brute force, problems that they themselves have confabulated.

It’s inevitable that any attempt to deal with them will lead to the use of physical force by one party or the other. As far as I’m concerned, they’re the aggressor: they’ve declared a settled intent to deport millions of peaceful, productive, law-abiding people out of sheer malice, and they’ve systematically begun to act on it. That’s a gigantic initiation of force against the people of this country, documented or not, and it demands resistance.  It doesn’t matter whether ICE happens to enforce the law against “real” criminals “as well.” The same might be said of the Nazis, the Mafia, or the Federal Security Service of Russia. A criminal organization doesn’t acquire legitimacy by going after other criminals, much less non-criminals. 

The resistance to ICE is well underway in New Jersey–much of it, I’m proud to say, care of Resistencia and groups like it. Resistencia has in fact been at this for the last sixteen years. More recently, our May Day rally in Princeton was a great success, and has now been followed by a series of demonstrations at Delaney Hall in Newark. Delaney Hall is a new ICE detention center in Newark–in other words, a mini-concentration camp–run by GEO Group, Inc., the carceral equivalent of a gang of mercenaries.

The City claims that Geo is in violation of local regulations, but though important, this is a secondary matter. The fundamental matter is that Delaney Hall has no right to exist at all. Neither does ICE. Beyond this, its personnel have no right to work for it. ICE violates our rights. The only genuine right it has is the right of peaceful self-dismantling. 

Resistencia began a series of resistance actions this past Friday, continuing them over the weekend, and into the workweek. Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, was arrested on Friday; the congressional representatives accompanying him were manhandled, but have so far not been arrested.

That made national news, but two of Resistencia’s own activists were arrested at the same site today. That has so far only made local news, but these arrests differ from the Baraka arrest only because people take for granted that a mayor can’t be arrested, whereas activists so often are. If you watch the video embedded in the preceding link, you can see my friend (in the blue headdress and keffiyeh) being arrested. There’s a longer video at the bottom of the post. 

A more sedate sort of resistance: the Outreach Team flyering Trenton, April 2025.

There’s no good reason for either set of arrests. And don’t talk to me about “trespassing.” Even apart from the hairs to be split about its definition, the relevant point is that trespass involves the forcible crossing of a legitimate boundary. There’s no legitimate boundary here. There’s no such thing as a legitimate boundary protecting an illegitimate institution’s “ownership” of an illegitimate facility on property we’re paying for.

The cops making these arrests need to take a cold, hard look at themselves in the mirror and ask what conception of justice they want to enforce. Do they want to do the mental work to understand what justice demands of them, or do they want to be the twenty-first century’s answer to the cops, sheriffs and state troopers of the Jim Crow South–the Bull Connors and Laurie Pritchetts and L.C. Crockers and all the rest? Because no matter what race they are, that’s the role they’re playing right now, and that’s the place in history they’ll have. History hasn’t been kind to Southern law enforcement, and won’t be kind to them.

I’ve come to have strategic reservations about trespass as an activist tactic, but that’s a topic for another time. I certainly have no moral objection to it. The people putting their bodies on the line to resist ICE deserve our admiration and gratitude. We need to do what we can to support and defend them so that they’re free to fight another day. If you share that sentiment, visit Resistencia on Facebook or Instagram, support our mission, and like our posts. The resistance has to start somewhere. It’s us or no one. It’s now or never.